Anxiety: I feel like I'm going crazy.

"I feel like I'm going crazy"

I've talked a lot about depression, I think it's easier to identify what it is because I remember the time in which I had no depressive symptoms. When it came along in my journey it changed who I was, how I felt and my notion of life was turned around. But with anxiety it's different. I've always been anxious and frankly I can't think about a time in which I didn't had that type of thoughts or in which my mind worked in any other way. I was the little girl whose mind was way too negative and way too extreme, who worried about everything waaaay too much, that was constantly nervous and scared and bit her nails. I remember when little being absolutely terrified about my parents going to an event without me because I immediately thought something bad was going to happen to them, they might die or something like that. Or being absolutely afraid of the dark because I thought someone will appear at my room at night. Or feeling people were constantly judging me or talking about me behind my back (with no logical reason or proof whatsoever to conclude that). And the fear was absolutely real, I started sweating and crying and (I swear I cannot emphasize this enough ) I felt like my thoughts were absolutely real.

So, as we are creatures that get used to everything, I got used to thinking like that. I thought it was normal to imagine the worst scenario possible every time or to replay your mistakes over and over at night when you couldn't sleep or to be absolutely afraid, terrified by the movies that your mind plays even though you know they make no sense. I'm used to work like that, to anticipate the worst scenario and to play your mistakes on repeat in your mind. I thought it was normal to freak out and think "oh my, they hate me and never want to speak to me ever again" when people won't reply to you in a few minutes. Or to think every boyfriend is going to cheat on you because why wouldn't they if you are just a regular girl. Or to assume every plane you get in is going to fall down in the ocean and you'll die. But it turns out, it's a mental condition which makes you think like that. Turns out, life isn't normally like that.

Let me tell you, there's no movie director that compares to an anxious mind. No Hitchcock, Tarantino, Scorsese, Spielberg or Woody Allen can compare to the ability of your freaking mind to create amazingly tragic, gorgeously chaotic and perfectly organized movies. It's terrifying (when you are living it) and fascinating  (when you understand it's just your own creation) at the same time. These movies, are so perfect. They have everything, scripts that will blow your mind, and the plot is perfectly planned and justified in order for you to believe it. Most of them would be unbelievable to someone who just listens the story from a friend or family that tells them what just went on in their heads, and they would think "that's stupid and makes no sense, why would you believe it?". One way to explain it is this: Have you ever gone to Disneyland or Disney world or to an amusement park of that kind? If so, you may have entered in one of those virtual realities or simulators things in which the attraction is literally to have a real life experience of an alternative scenario. The technology is absolutely amazing and in one second you feel you are on a battlefield or in a galaxy far, far away, or in Springfield with Homer. Every single one of your senses are there, so you transport your corporal experience to a psychological one in which you really, for some seconds, feel that you are there living THAT experience (eventhough you rationally know you are in Orlando or California or wherever the park is). You submerge to that experience and feel the emotions and act upon the reactions that the situation demands. If your spaceship is out of gas and  rapidly approaching to the land, you feel fear and anxiety, eventhough yoy rationally know you are in a freaking attraction in a Disneyland park and it's not real. But you feel it's real, so your body reacts as if.
That's my best effort to compare what anxiety is for those who have never experience it. The tiny difference is that you have no idea in which moment you got in the simulator. So something, no matter how small, triggers the anxiety attack in a matter of seconds and when you finally can come to your senses, some minutes later, you are crying, hyperventilating, sweating, shaking because your brother is dead (when the reality is that he hasn't come home yet, is late, and he's not answering his phone). And when This happens, you try your best to convince yourself with the rational arguments. But your brain is playing an amazing movie and is like all the workers in your body are watching it, believing that IT'S A REFLECTION OF REALITY and acting upon it. And then your brother walks in your room, explaining his soccer game got a bit longer and that he talked to some friends on the way out, and that his phone battery died. So you sit there. Someone turned the movie in your brain off because duh, he's alive, ergo the movie wasn't true and your brain says "false alarm again people, get back to your normal activities".
And you start wondering... I'm I going crazy? I feel I'm going crazy. Because I felt something was very real. I swore it was real. But it turns out it was another anxiety trick and it was false... So what? Which of my thoughts are real and which aren't? And you wonder and wonder and wonder until you reach the answer: they are all real to me because I feel them as real, but they aren't all real. It's extremely difficult to process, so you just take your Xanax and try some meditations in order to bring your body to calm again. And this is the cycle for every anxiety fantasy, for every panic attack that happens to you. This, daily. And sometimes, several times in a day.

Anxiety is very, very hard to live with. Because it's your own job to learn to identify which of your thoughts (that you feel all are equally real) are real and which are fantasies of your brain that will develop a panic attack. Another of the tricks it likes to play is the one of having all of those horrible moments of your life play in repeat, over and over. Anxiety has a collection of your top ten moments, to play them when you are feeling miserable or just when you are bored or pretty much, every night before you go to sleep. Top 10 most embarrassing things Mariana has ever said, Top 10 moments in which Mariana felt her heart was being broken, Top 10 moments in which Mariana felt she was being left out, Top 10 most awful family feuds, Top 10 things Mariana hates about herself, Top 10 things Mariana feels guilty about, Top 10 worst fantasies about your future, Top 10 ways Mariana or a loved one can tragically and unexpectedly died, Top 10 accidents Mariana might be involved, Top 10 scenarios in which Mariana can end up forever alone and infertile, Top 10 worst natural catastrophies that Mariana will be exposed (eventhough I live nowhere near the beach, a tsunami is on the list), Top 10 deadly diseases Mariana is having without her even knowing, Top 10 moments in which Mariana has felt stupid, Top 10 worst world tragedies through history and how will everyone of them might happen to Mariana somehow... And the marvelous thing about when your mind plays this moments is that YOU have the anxiety and sadness as if they were taking place right there. You live again those moments that once happened and caused you pain, and those that are fake and just fantasies, you feel them as if they were the most real thing ever.

On overcoming anxiety, I have no words as I have never lived in any other way. I don't know what a "normal" (anxiety free) mind is like, so I don't have an specific feeling or goal. I've learned a couple of things that make it better and help you in daily activities, after 5 years of intense battling (since it was only 5 years ago when I realized thanks to my therapist that my anxiety wasn't normal and just because I had lived my whole life with it didn't meant it shouldn't be treated or that I shouldn't learn how to cope with it in order to have a better life). For me humour has been a great tool to manage the anxiety attacks. You have to make fun of your own hell or it'll eat you alive. So sometimes, I'm able to identify it's an anxiety crisis and the movie in my head is fake, so I laugh about it, tell it with irony and laughs to my closest circle and say to my own brain "Good job guys, but it wasn't so believable this time. Maybe you should re evaluate your methods and better luck next time, let's see if I fall for it!" Or "well, that's a new "top 10". Inspired in Grey's anatomy much? I will very much like you to be original. Anything similar to Grey's and I won't buy it.". Sometimes I fall for it, and after the Anxiety attack I'll tell to myself "I had no idea we were terrified of fireworks. The way you guys connected the sound of them to the idea of a gun shot. Bravo, I didn't saw that one coming. Very creative, it was as real as my panic attack showed.". I have to give credit to my incredibly creative mind. And the memory! I swear it remembers stuff that no one else does (it remembers them to make me feel miserable but hey, at least I can say I have impeccable long term memory sometimes). My family, therapists and closest friends already know me, and when I come with a super anxious and catastrophic comment we'll just laugh and say "My brain... You know". I'm not saying with humour your crisis and panic attacks will disappear. No. But anxiety will be easier to deal with. It's like when someone with a prostatic leg names it, paints it and makes jokes about it. That won't bring their original leg back, but they are normalizing a condition that is usually terrifying and that can easily tear your life apart.

When you have anxiety or a panic attack, your body reacts as it feels in danger. So your heart pumps blood faster in order for your extremities to be able to flight-fight-remain petrified towards the dangerous situation. You hyperventilate,  hands sweat, start shaking, feel nauseated, etc. You may not be able to stop the movie in your head that's generating the panic but you can ease the physical reaction. First, breathe. Breathing exercises are absolutely powerful. Meditate, make your body feel at peace. Also, freeze your hands and feet. Touch cold things, step on cold water or ice. That will help the blood movement go back to normal. Sing something out loud, that will make your mind focus on the lyrics. Or feel textures. I mean, do any type of exercises that will focus your senses into being right here right now: name things you are seeing right now, say what you are smelling, pass something in your hands and feel the sensation it brings, focus and enunciate the sounds you are listening to. Do anything in order to gently bring your mind to the present and make it stay there, so the fantasies and movies will just turn off because no one is paying attention to them. And take it one minute at a time. I cannot emphasise how key is this. When you have anxiety you are absolutely catastrophic about the future. And guilty about the past. SO JUST STAY HERE. Right where you are. With the people that are in your life now, with what's going on now. The future will resolve itself and when it comes, you'll face it one minute at a time. And as for the past, you aren't getting anywhere by staying there. So just let everything and everyone go. And be right here, right now.